Lifting apparatus for televisions and monitors have been commercially available for more than 20 years. Most vendors of such lifting apparatus have designed lifting systems that were appropriate when large televisions and monitors weighed in the range of 100 pounds or more. The cost of such systems is substantial and as a result, these legacy lift apparatus have been most commonly deployed in custom installations for the wealthy and business enterprises. The expense of these legacy mechanisms is directly related to the cost to manufacture these relatively bulky, heavy and inefficient systems designed to lift weights in excess of 100 pounds.
Manufacturers have failed to revisit their legacy mechanisms' basic structure and design in light of the recent drastic changes in television designs and the reduction in weight of even relatively large screen televisions. This failure is understandable because:
(1) manufacturers continue to enjoy sales and profits from their legacy lift systems;
(2) manufacturers' costs for legacy lift designs are fully amortized, yielding handsome profit margins, and
(3) competitive entrants to the market place for lift systems have been sparse.
The continued existence of high cost lift systems demonstrates the customer need and desirability to be able to hide a television or monitor. This need is also established by the extent and range of expensive armoires available that allow televisions to be hidden behind closed doors.
Prior art motorized lift systems would generally be classified into three distinct categories:
(1) Telescoping steel screw lift columns with multiple attachment brackets to anchor a ridged lift structure to a cabinet or support wall, as exemplified by Moebel TV lift products.
(2) Steel rectangular frames with integral heavy duty slides and complex metal rack and pinion gear or chain drive arrangements. The heavy duty steel frames provide fixed box-like stability after being anchored to a cabinet or support wall, as shown in the Nexus 21 TV Lift System Model L-27.
(3) Large box-like modular platforms driven at both edges by metal rack and pinion or metal screw mechanisms. The box-like structure provides stability as shown in the Auton Motorized Systems Standard Lifts.
These three arrangements described above typically weigh in excess of 40 pounds, have numerous functional components, and are insufficient both in their use of materials and energy. Insufficiencies result both because a part of the heavy structure moves up and down with the monitor and must be driven by the motor, and because it is necessary to use a larger motor for the resulting heavier load.
In summary, lifts available today for televisions, monitors, ergonomic desks, projectors, kitchen appliances, hidden safes, motion furniture, and other devices are either cumbersome, noisy, unstable, erratic, expensive, complex, heavy, inefficient, or a combination of some or all of these. There is a need for an efficient, economical, precision, smooth, quite, compact, light weight, simple, and preferably environmentally sound, lift mechanism which may be conveniently sized to fulfill a range of lifting needs from small to large and from light to heavy.